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TOP STORIES
The Obama administration is considering new measures
in its final months in office to strengthen the landmark nuclear
agreement with Iran, senior U.S. officials said, with President-elect
Donald Trump's first appointments foreshadowing an increasingly rocky
road for the controversial deal. Action under consideration to
buttress the pact includes steps to provide licenses for more
American businesses to enter the Iranian market and the lifting of
additional U.S. sanctions. The effort to shore up the agreement was
under way before the election and is not aimed at boxing in Mr.
Trump, who opposes the deal, the officials said. Officials also
acknowledged the proposals are unlikely to make the nuclear agreement
more difficult to undo. Mr. Trump's first two picks for his national
security team-retired Army Gen. Mike Flynn as national security
adviser and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) as Central Intelligence
Agency director-are hard-liners on Iran who have voiced opposition to
the nuclear deal... Within the Obama administration, officials say
they recognize that there is little they can do from a policy
perspective if the incoming administration is determined to scuttle
the accord. But they plan to make a forceful case to the
president-elect's team of the grim consequences they believe the U.S.
would face if it ended up being blamed for the agreement's failure.
Airbus Group SE said it's evaluating the implications
of a congressional vote that could block it and Boeing Co. from
providing jets to Iran, though hasn't given up on completing a $27
billion order announced in January. Airbus will wait to see how the
U.S. Senate and President Barack Obama respond to the House decision,
Claude Brandes, its vice president with responsibility for customer
finance in the Mideast, said in an interview. Even if the Iran sale
wins a reprieve, the vote has created a "state of
uncertainty" just as the European company is negotiating final
terms. "Whatever the substance of the measure it's not great in
terms of timing," Brandes said. "We need to see the wording
and we need to see how the Iranians react." Whether or not Obama
vetoes the House measure, as the White House has suggested, it
"doesn't bode well" for when President-elect Donald Trump
takes over, he said. Trump has said he wants to tear up or
renegotiate the nuclear deal to which the aircraft sales are tied.
Brandes said Airbus might be able to go ahead with the delivery of a
single A321 narrow-body before the end of this year should Iran pay
in cash, though the aircraft "was discussed as part of a
package" and a final contract would still need to be signed. The
planemaker had also discussed supplying four A330 wide-bodies by May,
he said.
Syria's government hopes a brutal siege will vanquish
rebel holdouts in the city of Aleppo, a key battleground. But Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad's troops aren't leading the charge. That
task has been taken up by thousands of Shiite militiamen from
Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan who are loyal to Iran, a
Shiite country and perhaps Assad's most important ally... The
militias appear to be forming a sophisticated ground coalition that
has further bolstered Iran's influence in Syria, alarming even
officials in Assad's government, said Phillip Smyth, an expert on
Shiite militias at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
"They are building a force on the ground that, long after the
war, will stay there and wield a strong military and ideological
influence over Syria for Iran," he said... To the rebels, the
Iranian-backed militiamen are extremists. "They are spreading
Iran's influence and their extremist ideology, but our revolution is
not about religion; it's about freedom and dignity," said
Abdulmunem Zaineddin, a religious scholar involved with rebel forces
in the battles in Aleppo.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump's nominee as CIA director,
is a fierce critic of the Iran nuclear deal and wants to restore
surveillance programmes stopped after the Edward Snowden
revelations... With his name circulating as a candidate for the
Central Intelligence Agency post, Mr Pompeo took to Twitter on
Thursday to promise action on the Iran deal. "I look forward to
rolling back this disastrous deal with the world's largest state
sponsor of terrorism."
Chuck Schumer is putting Donald Trump on notice: Just
because the incoming Senate Minority Leader opposed President Barack
Obama's nuclear deal with Iran doesn't mean he'll work with Trump to
dismantle it. Schumer, who infuriated liberal groups by opposing the
Iran pact last year, told POLITICO on Friday that while he remains
"skeptical" of the agreement, "it would be wrong to
repeal it now." His warning comes as other detractors of the
deal also urge Trump to keep the deal intact, despite the
president-elect's campaign vow to scrap it. "I'm willing to try.
I think the jury's still out, and I'm willing to wait another year or
two," Schumer said in an interview in his Capitol Hill office,
two days after the New Yorker officially took the helm of Democrats'
48-member caucus for the next Congress.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC MISSILE
PROGRAM
Iran has begun to export excess quantities of heavy
water, which could be used in the process to make atomic arms, as it
moves to end a small but significant violation of a landmark nuclear
deal, according to diplomats and an Iranian news site. Heavy water is
used to cool reactors that can produce substantial amounts of
plutonium. That, in turn, can be applied to making the fissile core
of nuclear warheads. A recent report from the U.N.'s International
Atomic Energy Agency said that Tehran had more heavy water in storage
than called for by the agreement between it and six world powers.
While the overhang was slight - 100 kilograms (220 pounds) over the
allotted 130 metric tons - it is the second time that Iran had
exceeded its limit since the deal came into effect in January. U.S.
diplomats have criticized the violation, and with the incoming U.S.
administration warning it could try to overturn the deal, Iran's
repeated breach of its commitment is adding concerns about its
durability.
Iran has sent some "surplus" heavy water to
Oman, an Iranian nuclear spokesman was quoted as saying on Sunday,
after a U.N. atomic watchdog said Tehran was over a soft limit set
under its nuclear deal with major powers. "In view of the
progress of talks with several foreign firms and countries to
purchase heavy water, some quantities of Iran's surplus production
has been transferred to Oman," said Behrouz Kamalvandi,
spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, according to the
Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA). ISNA said Kamalvandi told the
agency that more heavy water would be sent to Oman as talks with
oversees buyers made progress. He did not give details.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
At first blush, the election of Donald J. Trump would
seem to be bad news for Iran. But there is a chance that on balance,
things could work out surprisingly well for the clerics. Publicly,
Iran's leaders stress that they pay little heed to what happens in
the United States, that they pride themselves on their independence.
"It makes no difference for Iran who the next U.S. president
is," the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a
speech last week. Yet he could hardly miss Mr. Trump's promises on
the campaign trail to "tear up" the landmark nuclear
agreement reached last year, which he frequently described as the
worst deal ever. In response, Ayatollah Khamenei said recently that
if Mr. Trump tore it up, "we will set fire to it." But Mr.
Trump also presents new opportunities for Iran, many analysts say.
While he has criticized the nuclear deal, he has also said that the
United States should stop backing rebels in Syria and focus on the
Islamic State militant group - effectively shifting its support to
Iran's ally in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad.
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said early Sunday
that the Obama administration is held hostage by the Iran nuclear
agreement. "We don't push back on Iran in a whole lot of other
places," Hayden told ABC's "This Week." Hayden, a
critic of the Iran deal, said United States foreign policy in the next
administration should push back against Iran in Iraq, Syria, and the
Gulf states. "If the Iranians want to walk away from the deal,
fine," he added.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Chinese telecoms equipment group ZTE Corp said on
Friday it has won a further reprieve to Feb. 27 on export
restrictions that were imposed on the company by the U.S. government.
In March, the U.S. Commerce Department hit ZTE with some of the
toughest-ever U.S. export restrictions for allegedly breaking
sanctions against Iran but has since issued temporary reprieves on
the curbs. The latest reprieve comes after ZTE said this week it had
appointed Matthew Bell as its new chief export compliance officer
based in the United States. If imposed, a ban for U.S. component
makers and software firms to do business with ZTE could cut off much
of the Chinese network equipment and smartphone maker's supply chain.
Iranian banks are trying to catch up with the rest of
the world. After years of isolation left them with outdated
practices, they're attempting to fall in line with international
standards of transparency so they can better attract business and
integrate with the global industry. The central bank has instructed
local lenders to set up compliance departments and risk management
programs, and to implement globally accepted accounting practices so
the economy can take further advantage of the easing of international
sanctions under the 2015 nuclear deal. The central bank "felt
the need to address and resolve the issues our banks have," Vice
Governor Peyman Ghorbani said in an interview on the sidelines of the
Frankfurt European Banking Congress. "Good steps have been
taken."
SYRIA CONFLICT
U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday that chaos
in Syria could persist for "quite some time" and that
Russian and Iranian support for President Bashar al-Assad's air
campaign had emboldened the Syrian leader's crackdown on rebels.
"I am not optimistic about the short-term prospects in
Syria," Obama said at a news conference in Lima at the
conclusion of a summit with leaders of Pacific Rim countries.
"Once Russia and Iran made a decision to back Assad and a brutal
air campaign and essentially a pacification of Aleppo regardless of
civilian casualties, children being killed or wounded, schools or
hospitals being destroyed, then it was very hard to see a way in
which even a trained and committed moderate opposition could hold its
ground for long periods of time," he said.
HUMAN RIGHTS
A British-Iranian woman serving a five-year jail
sentence in Iran is at breaking point after going on a five-day
hunger strike in protest against her incarceration, according to her
husband. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with Thomson
Reuters Foundation, is being held at Tehran's Evin prison. In
September she was found guilty of offences relating to national
security, but the precise reason for her arrest has not been
clarified... "She is at breaking point," her husband,
Richard Ratcliffe, told the Guardian. "When [Iranian-Canadian
professor] Homa Hoodfar was released [in September], she was really
hopeful that she would be next and she got moved into a big room. She
was very excited. Then she got moved back to a small room, which sent
her down to a sense that nothing is going to happen, and that's when
she started feeling suicidal." Ratcliffe said he last spoke to
his wife a week ago but only found out about the hunger strike late
last week when her family were summoned to the prison.
A British mother has been held prisoner in Iran for
seven months because of an outstanding £500million debt owed by the
UK Government, her family as claimed... her husband Richard Ratcliffe
claims she is being used as a 'bargaining chip' between Britain and
Iran... He said his family has been 'caught up' in a disagreement
between the two countries, claiming the UK owes about £500 million
for a tank deal 40 years ago. He said: 'There is a link as to why
Nazanin is still being held and the UK government's reluctance to pay
its debts. My family are caught as collateral.'
DOMESTIC POLITICS
The website of Iran's Supreme Leader is reporting that
he has appointed a new chief for the national army's ground forces.
The Saturday report says Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on
all state matters, has appointed Gen. Kiumars Heidari to the post.
The 52-year-old Heidari was formerly the acting commander of the
ground forces. He is a veteran of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war that cost
both sides over a million people. Separately, Khamenei also appointed
the former chief of ground forces Gen. Ahmad Reza Pourdastan to the
post of acting commander of the army. Pourdastan has served seven
years in the post.
Germany says Russia and Iran are partly responsible
for the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people besieged by
Syrian government forces in Aleppo. German government spokesman
Steffen Seibert says the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad
wouldn't be able to continue pounding the city without the help of
its foreign allies. Seibert told reporters in Berlin on Monday that
"it's obviously the Russian and Iranian support for the ...
Syrian regime which has caused a dramatic worsening of the situation
for the population."
OPINION & ANALYSIS
For years, many Republicans and conservatives have
charged that President Barack Obama was shielding embarrassing
intelligence and policy details about Iran in order to support the
nuclear deal reached last year. With Donald Trump's upset victory,
the party of Lincoln will have an opportunity to declassify and
disclose this information. While no decisions have been made, two
early picks to Trump's cabinet suggest this is going to happen. Let's
start with retired general Michael Flynn, the next president's choice
to be national security adviser. Flynn served for two years as
Obama's director of the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2012 to
2014. Just as relevant, however, is that in 2011 he ran a team at the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence that reviewed the
troves of material captured in the 2011 Osama bin Laden raid. Under
Obama, the intelligence community has declassified a small fraction
of those documents and released them in drips and drabs. This
prompted Flynn, after he retired in 2014, to charge that the
disclosures were selective. Flynn has said in interviews and writings
that some documents captured in the bin Laden raid showed a much
tighter relationship between Iran and al-Qaeda than previously
disclosed. The book he wrote this year with historian Michael Ledeen,
"Field of Flight," says, "One letter to bin Laden
reveals that al-Qaeda was working on chemical and biological weapons
in Iran."
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